Market notes
What changed, why it moves values, and what it means by segment. Written from sources we opened, with the mechanism explained.
United States · Class 3 to 8 · Trailers separately
Market regime5 min read
Through September the used market got tighter, not softer: sales down a quarter, prices up again, diesel at a record and money dearer. The trade-in wave that reverses it has a date, the fourth quarter.
Read the note12 published
Regulation4 min read
The pre-buy that ran for a year ended in August. What follows, dearer new trucks and a wave of trades, sets the ceiling and the floor under every late-model used tractor this winter.
Supply4 min read
Sixteen trucking companies went to bankruptcy court in under a month, with diesel the named cause. Their trucks come to market in lots, by configuration and by region, and that is how to read the prices they fetch.
Market regime4 min read
Between 2021 and 2023 the same truck nearly doubled and then lost half its value. Nothing about the truck changed. Reading the market is most of pricing it.
Segments3 min read
A sleeper and a day cab are both class 8 tractors. Since 2024 they have lived in different markets, and the count of trucks for sale told you first.
Channels3 min read
The same truck sells for different money at auction and on a dealer lot, and the gap is not a constant. It went negative in 2021 and near doubled retail in 2019.
Regulation3 min read
Orders for new trucks doubled in 2026 ahead of the 2027 emissions rule, and the trade press says the prebuy never came. Both are true, and what matters for used prices is what arrives in 2027.
Identity3 min read
Seventeen characters identify a truck. Five of them carry the specification, the rules say what those five must encode, and none of them says what the truck is worth.
Depreciation3 min read
A sleeper loses about 2 percent a month in a normal year, roughly 40 percent of its value by year three, and then hits a cliff at 400,000 miles that has nothing to do with the calendar.
Engines3 min read
The emissions era a truck was born into follows it to every sale. One engine family carries a court-estimated discount of 9,000 to 27,000 dollars, and a 2010 rule still decides what a truck is worth in California.
Specification3 min read
A car is selected. A truck is built. The specification can move a used price by thousands, yet only one source has ever put numbers on it, and those numbers are nine years old.
Trailers3 min read
A trailer has no engine, so it has no emissions era and no engine reputation. It moves on freight, cold chain and construction, and a reefer is about twice as volatile as a dry van.
01
Every number comes from a page we read, dated and linked at the end of each note. A search snippet is not a source.
02
A listing price is a hope. A hammer price leaves out the fees. A retail sale is a fact. We never mix them.
03
Orders fell, prices rose: so what. Each note follows the chain to what it does to a used truck, by segment, and how long it takes.